Lé TTéR FROM W A5HINGTON JANUARY 23 T HE revellers, relatives, and well- wishers have mostly gone back home, leavIng the Eisenhower administration, which at the moment appears to consIst of no more than a hundred-odd men and women, to its opportunities, which are large, and its troubles, which are moderately numer- ous. There has been a good deal of talk lately about the grandeur of T ues- day's ceremony, about the splendid myths the ceremony embodies, and about its powerful, though not neces- sarily eloquent, testimony to the possi- bilities of democratic civilization. Some of the talk has been pretty mawkish, but if the ritual is thought of in connection with what IS going on now and will be going on for quite some time-the transfer to this handful of people of an organization manned by two and a half million-it is indeed an impressive thing. This particular transfer is unique on many counts. The apparatus the Eisen- hower people are taking over is four of five times the size of any that has been transferred in the past. Its personnel was recruited by other people for other " J>:v,. ends, and one of the declared objectives of the new administration, one of the reasons it was so eager to acquire con- trol of this massive organization, is to disband large parts of it-to disperse some of those millions and to abolish their functions altogether. Whether it will do so is another question, and an engaging one, but at least that is one of its intentions The transfer IS also the best prepared in history, there being no precedent eIther for the warm-up ses- sions in the Commodore bull pen in New York or for the pre-inaugural confer- ences between the old and new authori- ties here in Washington. Possibly the most InterestIng aspect of the transfer is the fact that the receivers are, collec- tively, the least professIonal and the least experienced group of government admInistrators to come to power in modern times. The Eisenhower admin- istration is a great experiment in the in- terchangeability of talents, the biggest opportunity the busIness community has ever had to test the application of busi- ness knowledge and business techniques to broader problems. The President is no newer to the game than most of his "",-" - -::;. --...,... " / ' """ ". .. ,, ' "'.." , "' , " ,' . .. . , , , " o ..;. J..: ...: :.#. " . 4: * . r \,:t;r '. "* ". , '"', <<: . .. .; :. # " ,. " . ..' W' ",'-" .' . '". '" g;. .( ) """", -..-- ' ...... .. * ,. , o1ttt ' " "' "F-' ^' ?, -t I '* ( · 4 " ' \ "" ,\ " "" " Andante! Andante! " 55 advisers. On his staff, the only man with any real experience in gavel nmen t is Sherman Adams, a former lumber ex- ecutive who served one term in Con- gress and was Governor of New Hamp- shire for four years. In his Cabinet, only ] ohn Foster Dulles has any inside knowledge of the workings of federal power. The rest are estimable men but greenhorns everyone-none being greener than the most formidable ex- ecutive of them all, Charles E. Wilson, whose assertion that what is good for General Motors is good for the country wIll be a staple of Democratic oratory for many years. In the non-Cabinet agencies, only Harold Stassen has a background in public affairs. It will be weeks, and perhaps months, before anyone can measure the impact of the new administration on the vast organization it controls or on the life of this peculiar community. For some time to come, Eisenhower's Washington will be Truman's Washington without Truman. But the doings of the past few days have had an impact on the consciousness of most conscious people, and in spite of some ominous rumblings on Capitol Hill and the Washington Times-H erald' s decision on Wednesday that there IS no place for President Eisenhower in the Republican Party, it seems reasonable to say that most Re- publicans are altogether pleased and most other people are well disposed. The inaugural address, which was responsible for the Times-Herald' s de- fection, was appreciated by most people and fervently admired by some. Even Senator Morse, of Oregon, liked it, though he has now gone on to other things. There was no stomping in the Plaza as the speech was read, and there was a certain amount of disappoint- ment over its failure to deal with do- mestic affairs, but the President had chosen to address himself more to the world than to his countrymen, and it is generally conceded that, in the circum- stances, thIs was the statesmanlike thing to do. The White House and the State Department have already received grat- ifying responses from the embassies- from those, at least, that could be expect- ed to have anything gratifying to say. There has been almost universal ap- proval of the President's decision to hold regular press conferences. Some of hIs advisers had urged him against this, and it was widely thought that in his press relations he would adopt the practice of Governor Dewey, whose former press secretary, James Hagerty, is now in- stalled as press secretary in the White House. Governor Dewey dislikes press conferences and holds them only at his